The Canberra Roller Derby League (CRDL) is a Canberra-based roller derby league. It was created in 2008, with the first bouts occurring in 2009. Canberra currently holds the Division 1 trophy for The Great Southern Slam. Canberra is a member of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA).
The league features a four-team home league, plus the all-star Vice City Rollers, which represents the league in interleague play. At home bouts, the league has had attendances as high as 5,000, and has its own stable of officials who officiate the league and interstate bouts. The league's bouts are aired on ChannelVision, and they have had media coverage from 666 ABC Canberra.
History
The Canberra Roller Derby League (CRDL) was established in 2008 as a volunteer organisation intended to promote roller derby, women's health and sport in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The league was created by Bullseye Betty (Kate Murphy) and Dr Hell (Helen Doyle). Other early members include Roulette Rouge (Lucy Quinn) and Peachy Keen. The league was intended to resemble the burlesque, and was the first roller derby league in the ACT.
The league's first practices took place in parking lots around the Territory. Dr Hell and Bullseye Betty helped arrange a screening of Roller Derby Dolls, a documentary, on 28 July 2008 at The Front Cafe and Gallery in Lyneham in order to generate membership in the new league. At the start of its first season, the league had 26 skaters. The first public bout in 2009 took place at Southern Cross Stadium, Tuggeranong, before a sell out crowd. At the end of the 2009 season, additional information nights were held at The Front Cafe and Gallery on 25 August and The Hush Lounge in Phillip on 30 August, and the league held a demonstration at the 2009 UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships. On 21 November 2009, it held a roller derby rodeo at the Southern Cross Stadium with tickets being sold at Smith's Bookshop. By 2011, tickets for the league's events would be sold through Ticketek.
The league's presence in Canberra has helped change the perception of the sport in the capital from an entertaining sideshow to a mainstream women's participation sport. The popularity of roller derby in Canberra has meant that CRDL cannot accommodate all the locals who wish to participate, resulting in the formation of Varsity Derby League as a student organisation at Australian National University in 2011.
CRDL helped other leagues in the country. In 2009, members of the league competed as substitutes for the Sydney Roller Derby League's Screaming Assault Sirens in its grand final, after one member of the Sirens was quarantined with swine flu, and several other skaters were out injured.
Canberra Roller Derby League was featured in the 2012 documentary This Is Roller Derby.
Organisation and structure
Bullseye Bettie was the league president from 2008 to 2009, followed by Cherry Axe-Wound from 2010 onwards. The league previously allowed only female skaters to participate, but now affirms WFTDA's gender policy and states that membership is also open to "any other gender identities who most closely identify with women’s flat track roller derby". Members of the league are drawn from many backgrounds, and include medical doctors, mothers, finance workers, electricians and tradies. The CRDL is considered the most professional league in the country.
The league is structured to protect the safety of its skaters, and new roller derby competitors advance through tiers. At each level, they learn and perfect specific derby skills, experience and general fitness, which helps to avoid injury and improve the quality of the competition. The time between joining and getting to compete in a bout is generally nine to twelve months. Skaters practice for roughly eight total hours a week, mostly during two weekly practices that last around three hours.
In April 2013, Canberra was accepted as a member of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association Apprentice Program, and graduated to full membership in October 2014.
Squads
Vice City Rollers
The all-star squad is composed of members of the teams of the Canberra Roller Derby League, who compete as a team in interstate bouts as the "Vice City Rollers". The name is a play on the fact that Canberra has a legal "adult" industry.
The Vice City Rollers competed in their first interstate bout in June 2010 in the Great Southern Slam hosted by Adelaide Roller Derby. They lost to Adelaide in the pool stage, but beat the Van Diemen Rollers; their record was insufficient for the team to advance to the quarter-finals.